first of all thank you so much for opening this forum after the other one was closed!
I hope it can grow and become a wealth of useful information like the previous one was!
my question is: as a consumer, for an online dispute, if i were in the EU, i know i could use the online dispute resolution website made available by the eu commission. Is there something equivlaent that i could use in switzerland?
I am asking because I have an absurd dispute with Duolingo ongoing. they charged me 120CHF through apple but did not provide at all the subscription service, since i had actually cancelled it in the app…
apple and duolingo shield behind each other . I think this mechanism is designed to deceive consumers. i would like to file a complaint because it makes no sense i still do not have the service and they charged me for it…i cannot be right! ( dont worry about the specifics, the details are complicated and like i said “absurd” i just would like to know if there is a body where i can file a complaint in switzerland for free)
ignore the specific of the matter that i described i dont need that kind of advice
Is there a place like the EU online dispute resolution website that works for swiss disputes?
apple wont let me open a dispute because i discovered the charge in april , and they charged me way back on the 28th of december.
i discovered the charge after i accepted a free trial from duolingo in april and when i went into the apple system to cancel the free trial, i discovered that they had charged me months before for a 12 month renewal of a subscription on the same account that i had cancelled back in dec 23.
yes this is the same account on which duolingo was no longer providing the premium service , meaning they have been only providing the free features !(even though they charged me without me noticing until dec 24 for premium) , the same account on which they offered and provided the free trial later in april, the same account on which i originally had subscription for 1 year and then cancelled the subscription in 2023, confirmed by duolingo stopping the service when i cancelled.
the details get more absurb but i dont feel like explaining them now.
No i dont have any other account , never had. The premium service allowed me to send an email to 5 people (that according to their adverts could be anybody in the world…e.i strangers) with a link that allowed these other people to get premium services for free as part of my subscription. i sent the link to my 9 year old niece in dec 22. she used duolingo for a few months then stopped (well before the renewal they charged me for)
When i asked duolingo to check that my account didnt have premium they confirmed it didnt have them, when i asked them to tell me what account got the premium features that i paid for , they said they had transferred the ownership of the premium account to my 9 year old niece in italy… without my permission, her mom’s permission, without my niece knowing anything about my payment methods, without her having anything to do with my apple account etc…
She had also not used duolingo since before the renewal because she changed ipad
Shall i continue?
What is the obvious reason for not having a consumer online dispute resolution body in switzerland? these companies have tactics that exploit consumers
Check with one of the regional consumer associations. Since there is no government dispute resolution organization, there might be an NGO that supports with E-commerce.
So far, it looks like the credit card was set for automated payments and an automated payment was done. Usually credit cards have a deadline of 3 months to dispute charges. Maybe you’re right, but from a lazy consumer perspective, it seems it’s too late. For sure there will be a next time and many more times, so focus the efforts in them.